This week marks my third anniversary with Kotaku, spending all of that as the site's weekend editor. On my third weekend here, my brother Fletch and I unloaded this post - "Two Brothers Meditating Upon Questions of Pac-Man," originally published April 19, 2008. A hypothetical calculation of Pac-Man's, er, metabolic functions, it became one of Kotaku's all-time humor classics. It's re-presented here, updated for the site's current design, with a gallery now featuring two alternate, unpublished images.

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My brother, Fletch, and I were 8 and 6 years old, respectively, when Pac-Man debuted. As this IM conversation demonstrates, to this day we approach the game with the same wide-eyed curiosity and emotional maturity as we did in 1980.

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Tuesday, April 15
10:01:53 AM Owen: hey, pac-man question: how big were the dots and the energizers, in pixels
10:02:08 AM Fletch: You mean on the original video game screen?
10:02:16 AM Owen: yeah, 2x2 for dots, and roughly 8x8 for the energizers?
10:02:20 AM Fletch: i guess. I don't have bionic graphic measurement powers
10:02:37 AM Owen: I'm trying to figure how big a shit Pac-Man would take after one board.

10:16:50 AM Fletch: OK 98 pixels for cherries x 2 is 196
10:17:05 AM Owen: OK so that's 960 pixels for the dots, 276 for the energizers, 196 for the two fruit. i get 1432 pixels total consumed. now, let's say it's one of those high speed versions like we played at the pizza hut. so he's burning a ton of calories, and all of this stuff is super nutritious. and plus he reserves some that he'll convert to mass for when he goes supersize to chase blinky at the first intermission. so all but 25 pct is left in his intestines. that leaves:

10:23:35 AM Fletch: so let's call it a square 19 pixels on each side
10:23:37 AM Fletch: now how big is pac. I'm betting he ain't that big
10:23:52 AM Owen: 16x16 at the max.
10:23:59 AM Fletch: 14x14. plus his butthole has to be only two or three pixels wide
10:24:09 AM Owen: owwwwwwwwwww
10:24:30 AM Fletch: so it ain't gonna come out square, it's going to be a big long squirt-dookie
10:24:35 AM Owen: ( O ) ___ ( o)

13:40:28 PM Owen: lol blinky's all !!! omfg
13:40:33 PM Fletch: thanx
13:40:45 PM Owen: so i was trying to figure
13:40:49 PM Owen: what would the men's room look like after one round of Tapper
13:40:52 PM Fletch: I have to go now.